Itsumo
by DarkTaoAngel
Summary: Ren is captured and tortured, and all over the course of his young life. He is able to admit to the horrors of his past, but will he be able to move on in time? What if he cannot remember any of the good things in his past?
1. Drowning

Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King, and I am sorry that I have not updated recently. It is almost Christmas break, and so I will make sure that I update much more then!

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It was a dark night in late August, the moon relecting its shadow upon the openriver in the background. The lakes ripples remained unmoving, and a desolate and lonely feeling cascaded over the area. The bridge over the river was extremely loose looking, but it too remained still in the night.Though the area felt lonely and void, it was far from that.

Three figures silouettes cast shadows over the illuminated landscape. They were unmoving and silent, occationally conversing for short amounts of time in whispers. They would turn and look over their shoulders from time to time, as though afraid that they were being watched by another person. They were also each holding weapons, a sure sign that something was coming, and they were prepared for the fight. They were also holding a singular mortuary tablet each, as they were all shamans.

They were all boys, and and one of them, the tallest, had blue hairand washolding a snowboard in his arms. He wore a snow jacket, even though the night was not cold, and his pale blue eyes stared solitarily at the ground. He was clearly focused on what was happening around him, as though he was waiting for something. His name was Usui Horo.

Another one of the boys was a slightly shorter one with mahogany brown hair. He was wearing a black and orange uniform, much more suited for the weather than Horo's clothing. He wielded two swords, one was small, antique,and red, the other was a long samurai sword. His usual smile was replaced by a look of seriousness, much like the look upon Horo's face. His name was Asakura Yoh.

The final boy was standing alone several feet away from the other boys. He was the shortest in the group, most likely due to the slight age difference between the them all. He was leaning against a long Kwan-Dao, or Chinese spear, with a hollow hole near the point, and a crimson red grip. This boy always had a serious and slightly hateful look about him, and it was especially noticable in his fiery gold eyes, which looked as though they could peer into a person's soul. This boy's name was Tao Ren.

They were all staring off in opposite directions, scaning the area with their eyes for any sudden disturbance. They did not have to wait long, as they heard a rusling sound behind them all.

They turned to see three more people entering the scene, only this time they were all girls. They were being held captive and in chains bound by thier captive around thier arms and legs. Three older men stepped out of the darkness, each clutching weapons in one hand, and the chains of one of the three girls in the other hand. The girls were looking to the ground, thier hair falling down over their faces. One had shortpink hair and pink eyes, her name was Tamara; another had blonde hair, and brown eyes,her name was Anna; and the last had blue hair and unseen blue eyes, her name was Pirika, Horo's younger sister.

"Put her down!" Horo shouted out of the silence, giving away his possition to his sister's captive. The sight of her in chains was just too much for him to bear.

"As you wish." Stated a large man holding a chained whip with what looked like panda claws at the end. The girl he was holding was Anna, Yoh's fiance since the age of thirteen. She was not one to give in to pain, she was strong, but she was also on the verge of tear at that very moment.

The three girls were flung painfully onto the rough pavement as they fought with all of their strength to stand up. They were forced after several painful minutes of struggle to give up, where they all three slumped back onto the cold, hard ground. The boys took a few steps towards them, but were stopped immediatly by the other three men. They all brought out various weapons, integrated their ghosts into them, and prepared to battle with everything they had to defend the girls.

Though the other three men fought well, with increadable strength and furyoku, their skills were easily matched by the boys. Two of the men went down quickly, but the boys were running out of strength as well; they would have to finish this fast.

The only man left was a tall man, with a spanish accent and a strong, tall ghost with him as well. His ghost was in the form of a skeleton, which held in its left hand a short but strong sword. It was advancing on Yoh and Horo.

Horo had little furyoku to defeat the last man, and so he was sruck down shortly, leaving Yoh as the man's new target. Ren rushed to help, and in the process, he became the new enemy. The skeleton began to advance on him instead of Yoh.

Ren ran as fast as he could, to the point where he was out of breath, and nearly out of strength. He was forced to give up, as Yoh was too far away to save him now, and was struck mercilessly by the gigantic knife of the skeleton.

Ren was flung bacwards, not too painfully, but enough to send him off side and onto the bridge. He was able to breathe a sign of relief, but it was soon replaced with panic as he realized that the bridge was breaking. The sides both snapped, and Ren was sent plummeting into the river. The last thing he heard before his ears were completely under water, was Yoh shouting his name. And then he could hear nothing.

He was drowning; he could feel the water-pressure forcing him to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Water was filling his lungs as he fought to break free of the hold that was upon his body. His eyes were closing slowly; he could barely see, barely breathe. A hand reached out to him and he took it, thinking that he as abou to be saved from drowning.

He took the person's hand as he saw a faint reflection of a young woman with long hair, though he cound not tell right away who it was.She gripped his hand as best she could in am attemp to pull him up, but the waters were too deep, and they were able to pull him back under again.The waves began to swirl him down, as water filled his lungs once again. He fought with all he had to break free, but he was unable to, and eventually, Ren went unconcious... 


	2. Forgotten

The room was dark, the only light was coming from a window in the corner of the room, which appeared to be at least partially underground. From the light that came from the window, the only things that could be seen were the rust colored stains on the cement ground. The stains looked suspitiously like blood.

A groan sounded from the corner opposite the window. The groan was low, and it sounded quite painfilled and gruesome. A pair of small golden eyes shot wide open and frantically searched the room, noticing almost immediately the presence of an array of unfamiliar surroundings. The golden eyes pierced straight through the darkness, as though their owner could see right through the eclipsing black air, though after several failed attempts, he knew that he could not.

The boy wanted to run, and his instinct was to climb out of the window, but he was held back. It was then that he first became fully aware of the chains that bound him to the wall of the room. There were shackles binding his legs and arms, and even one around his small waist, preventing him from moving in any dirrection.

He became panicked, his eyes widening at the sight of the blood by the window, and he began to become worried. He fought severly against the chains around him, pulling with all of his might, but it was no use. He tried to move again, but felt a burning pain on his chest and, looking down, he noticed that his usually worn red shirt had a rather large rip accross the front of it, and beneath that, there was an unusually deep gash etched into his skin.

He fought the urge to throw up, pain sinking into every inch of his small body. His dark purple hair, which blended in almost perfectly with the surrounding darkness, hung loosely around his face. He knew that it would do him no good to just stay still, and so he fought his bindings once again, this time earning a much more severe blast of pain, forcing him to shut his eyes tightly. His fingers clenched into fists, and his eyes felt as though they had roled into the back of his head. And after that, the darkness took over his eyes, and he fainted.

The boy's eyes opened once again, this time a bit more slowly, as he worked on adjusting them to the impenitrable darkness. He expected to feel the shackles around him, and see the window sheding the only light into the room. The shackles were still binding him, except for the ones around his ankles, which had been removed; as for the window, he looked around him and saw no light, and it was not long before he realized that he was not chained to the wall, but to some kind of table, and that he was staring up at the ceiling, not the wall.

He gasped and tried to scream, the shock of it all sinking in deeper by the minute, but a hand stretched out and clamped itself tightly over his mouth. He looked over to his left, and saw a girl with long blue hair, her face had an innocent look on it, but he knew better than to trust someone that he did not know. She seemed so familiar, as though they had met before, but he could not quite figure out who she was. He tried desperately to remember her, but the more he tried, the more he realized that he could not. In fact, everything before that morning, everything that had happened before he had woke up here, was a blur. All he could recall was some kind of light, a seering pain, and shouts of a name. It must have been his name, but he could not remember what it was. All he knew was that he had never been here before, and that this was not where he was supposed to be, though he did not know where exactly he was supposed to be anymore.

He fought to get the girl to let go, but dispite his groans and slight hissing, she would not release him. He tried to wriggle free, kicking his free legs,and noticed that the wound on his chest felt slightly better. Looking down, he saw the girl's free hand over his chest, a needle clenched tightly in her fingers, sewing up the cut. He steadily calmed himself down, and eventually the girl took her hand off of his mouth. She sighed, looking down at his cut, and then back up at his moderately confused looking face.

"You can not remember anything, can you?" she said, her voice even more calming then her gentle touch. The boy shook his head sadly, looking deep into her eyes and seeing clear blue. He tried again to grasp the memory of her, for her blue eyes were definately something that he had seen before, but every time he tried, that simple memory seemed to slip away slowly, along with the rest of them.

"I thought so. It was the cut, it has a kind of poison in it. You were lucky that it was only your memory that went, for it could have been your life instead. Still, it may take you a while to remember everything, and you may not even be able to do that. But that is the worst of your problems at the moment. There is still Wang to deal with..." she shuddered slightly, causing the boy to flinch slightly as he hands twitched over his wound.

"W-who is _Wang_" he said, surprising himself by how deep and elegant his voice sounded; he could not even remember how it had sounded, and now he knew, though he was unsure of how old he was, or even how he looked, at least he knew what his voice sounded like.

The girl sighed again and thought seriously about not telling him who she was, but she looked into his beautiful golden eyes, and it seemed as though the whole world vanished into them. Thier purity, their innocence, could capture just about anyone's soul with one glance. She opened her mouth the tell him, but she was quickly interupted by the slamming of the door leading to this room.

The girl tried desperately to hide herself, as a tall woman with long black hair entered the room, sheding a small ray of light in with her from the upstairs room, but it soon faded. This woman was obviously much older than the young girl, and she was also very angry with her.

"Grr, Pirika! You can stop hiding now, I will only beat you harder if you try to escape me!" the woman shouted, forcing the girl, who's name was obviously Pirika, out of her hiding behind two towering boxes of who-knows-what. She was shaking as she approached the woman, who towered far above her.

"Look at me!" the older woman spat at Pirika. Pirika looked up at her with slightly watery eyes, and the woman took no pity on her. Quite on the contrary, she slapped her fiercely accross the face, causing her to fly halfway accross the room, landing with a thud in an unmoving heap on the floor by the window.

The boy could not quite see her, because of the table and his bindings, but he could hear it all quite well, perhaps a bit _too_ well. He could only assume that this woman was Wang, and that her arrival could not be good. She looked to Pirika's motionless body, walked up to it, and spit on the ground next her her. Then she came up to the table in which the boy was strapped down on. A twisted smile curled up on her face, and a dangerous glint appeared in her eyes.

"She is sure to be down for quite a while, and after that, I can assure you that she will be put down for good! Well, _Ren_, I guess that just leaves you and me. Surprised to hear your own name? I thought you would be. Well now, lets have some _fun_, shall we?"

She walked off to the other side of the room, and into the light so that Ren could see her more clearly. His eyes followed her every move, watching her as she took a small object out from the inside pocket of her jacket. She flicked it forwards, and it unroled, a long pointy spear on the end of a bright red handle, with a shiny red bead on the top end.

She walked up to him, pushed the table that he was on so that it was vertical, and he was facing her. His eyes narrowed, and he shot a sharp glare in her dirrection. She simply smirked all the more widely, raising her weapon eye level with him.

It was then that he noticed it, a small tattoo on the underside of her arm, that of a YinYang symbol. Ren's mind flashed back to that very symbol, and to the only memory that he had held onto for so long, the only one that he now had. Though it was brief and simple, it was able to clear up some of his questions, and one thing went through his mind at that moment...

This woman was a Tao, and so was he...


End file.
